


Flashes of Memory

by Nadia_Hernandez



Category: Charmed (TV 2018)
Genre: Amnesia, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Love, Memory Alteration, Memory Charms, Memory Loss, Memory Magic, Memory Related, Recovery, Temporary Amnesia, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:27:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23659117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nadia_Hernandez/pseuds/Nadia_Hernandez
Summary: Harry Greenwood can't remember much but his companions make him want to. One, in particular, makes him desperate.
Relationships: Harry Greenwood & Charmed Ones, Harry Greenwood & Macy Vaughn & Maggie Vera & Mel Vera, Harry Greenwood/Macy Vaughn
Comments: 5
Kudos: 56





	Flashes of Memory

**Author's Note:**

> The new Charmed is so good! Only a couple left until we lose it to hiatus.

Harry does not remember much, and most of what he does is something that his caretakers have told him. They seem to have all experienced a rather rich life full of adventure and hijinks, together, and if for nothing other than their benefit he at least pretends to recognize some aspects of the exploits they describe. So we fought a demon, you say? Why yes, yes we did! We were imprisoned together in hell by an arsehole dragon with a worse sense of humour than Dennis Miller? Definitely! You became the Source of All Magick and almost destroyed the world? Smashing! It is only polite to honor the whims of young women so sweet and he is, after all, a gentleman. Or at least he assumes that he is one, or perhaps the daring, rakish sort of rogue that maidens swoon over in those classic, Regency romance novels published by Mills and Boon. An accent as posh as this one would be utterly wasted in any other circumstances.

He wonders if they are all family, here. There is an easy intimacy that he associates with it, at least. He is almost certain that his three primary caretakers are sisters. They resemble each other strongly, for one thing, and their general manner is even more similar than their features. He wondered for a brief time if his fourth caretaker was a close relative of his own as their vocal inflections and complexion were similar enough to suggest such a relationship. On the second day of his convalescence she disabused him of that notion by lounging beside him on the bed with a cat’s easy grace and pressing fiery kisses against his mouth.

It is on the whole not unenjoyable so he lets it go on for an appropriate amount of time before asking, “I’m going to assume this means you’re not my sister, correct?”

She smiles a wicked, jellicle smile and it looks as if that self-same cat has eaten the canary, drank the cream and suffocated a baby or two besides. “No, love… unless you’re into that.”

He isn’t and makes it known as politely as he can under the circumstances. “Your loss then, handsome.” She shrugs and flounces away with briefly fluttered fingers. He doesn’t quite remember her name and isn’t sure he wants to learn it.

His other nursemaids, on the other hand, are clearly and helpfully labeled with name tags pinned to the right breast of their shirts or blouses. The youngest of them, Maggie with a heart dotting her I and butterflies drawn around the name, reminds him of the baby sister that he wishes he had (or maybe does have, who knows?). He tells her so when she brings his cup of hot Earl Grey with lemon and it elicits a squeal and hug so tight he can feel his ribs groan. “That is so sweet! You’re family, too, Harry. We’ve been through so much together, and you’ve always been there for us, so I’m so happy that I get to be here for you, this time!” She giggles. “Witches healing a White Lighter, who’d have thought?”

So they are witches, then? Not as he remembered from Halloween decorations as a child with long noses, warts and tall, conical caps, certainly, but still women of power who commanded respect and--with the proper application of Earl Grey and butter biscuits--could enslave a man as surely as any spell. Witches, yes… it makes as much sense as anything else. What then, is a White Lighter? He’s not sure if the title makes him sound dignified or a trifle silly, to be honest.

His second caretaker, Mel in a red slash of sharpie that looks like the blood of the wicked spilled by an avenging angel, is more aggressive in her pursuit. “Are you sure you can’t remember anything, Harry? Nothing at all?”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“I mean… not even the time you kidnapped us and tied us up in the attic to tell us that we were witches?”

“Why on earth would I have done that?”

She shrugs. “I wondered, too. I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time? How about when Maggie’s crazy choir professor created a bunch of sirens or harpies or… something… and she had to break the spell by singing Roberta Flack to everyone? You know, literally doing the opposite of killing them softly with her song.”

“It sounds like a marvelous adventure but I don’t remember it any more than I do kidnapping you.”

She grunts in frustration. “Okay, what about when we went white water rafting and fell through a portal into the time of the dinosaurs and had to fight lizard men called Sleestaks?”

He hates to see her so disappointed so he goes along with it. “Yes. They were terrifying, weren’t they?”

She pumps her fist in triumph. “Ha! I knew you were just pretending to remember yesterday. That wasn’t something that happened to us… it’s the plot to Land of the Lost.”

He frowns. “I’m sorry. You and your sisters have just been so kind to me I hated to keep disappointing you.”

She appears crestfallen, hugs him tightly for a moment and sits beside him with his hand still in hers. “You’re not disappointing us, Harry. We’re just so upset that you can’t remember all the things we’ve done together. We love you and we want you back--all of you, your memories included… even that gross blood pudding that you eat.”

He can’t apologize for that--he is British, after all--so he accepts another tight hug and she takes her leave. It’s not long until his third caretaker arrives, Macy written in such tight, square little blocks that it could be type script. She is taller than the others with dark, uptilted almond eyes and curls that corkscrew around her head in a maddening array that calls out to be stroked. He would never, though, as he is a gentleman… or so his accent tells him, at least.

Macy… this is the one who declared her love for him in that agonized, broken voice. He ached for her, cursed himself that he couldn’t remember a woman who loved him so fiercely and selflessly. A lesser man would have pretended to remember for a chance to hold her, touch her, offer comfort but he wouldn’t be that much of a cad even if he was a roguish character from a Regency romance. He says, “Welcome back. I enjoyed talking with you, last night.”

“Yeah,” she says. “Nothing like a little discussion of quantum entanglements and the Celtic Other Worlds to while the night away, right?”

“Indeed. I was particularly intrigued by your assertion that the beings known as fae or Twyleth Teg may be reflections of our higher selves… and that those we refer to as classical demons--not those you describe us as having fought, which seem like another species of man more than anything--are likewise the reflection of our sins. Our shortcomings and failings.”

“It’s something I thought about a lot during college and grad school. I was raised in a pretty religious household--my grandma was, at least, and my dad just sorta went along with it if nothing else--but when I started learning about evolution, biochemistry… the old stories just weren’t making sense anymore, you know?”

“I do. My own graduate studies of Crowley and the general sexual politics of the late nineteenth century led me down many of the same paths.” He does not quite understand how he remembers his time at Hull but cannot recall what he surmises are his closest friends.

“So yeah… I couldn’t reconcile angels and stuff with being super-beings from, you know… out there.” She gestures vaguely with her hands. “So I sort of worked out that they were in here… and in here.” She points at her temple and then lays her hand over her heart.

At this last something flashes in him, flares against the walls raised in his memory. He can envision this woman in a dark dress, curls piled high on her head. She is nestled in his arms and he can feel her brown, warm skin against his, feel the soft pressure of his lips against his. It’s nothing like when the other woman--Mel in bold black sharpie calls her Abigael in the same tone another woman might say “bitch”--kissed him. That felt wrong, cold and greasy. Even in memory or what might be a flight of fancy this seems like the rightest thing he can imagine, a part of his soul missing that falls into place.

“I understand what you mean,” he says, and smiles. “Our better angels, then, are angels in truth.”

“Exactly! See… that’s the kinda stuff you come up with when you’ve got a PhD in poetry instead of genetics.”

“Your concept, I just put it in pretty words.” They spend a long evening together again, talking of things that have happened that he does not remember and things that will happen in the future. He does not feel himself again, is not himself if indeed memory makes the man, but is content to wait a moment or two or forever to let it all come back to him. If the time is spent in Macy’s company, Macy of the disciplined printed hand as regular as type, he will consider it as well spent indeed as any he can imagine.


End file.
